Talent Tip #15: Leveraging the hidden organization

Brought to you by Raytheon Professional Services
By Bill Russell, Raytheon Professional Services

In our current economic environment, more and more companies have begun to discuss ways to more effectively use one of the most valuable company assets – their people. Some exciting new tools have enabled leading companies to tap into this asset in a new way, and they build on the concept of the social network.

An informal structure exists within all organizations. It falls outside documented organization charts and isn’t defined by traditional reporting relationships. Simply stated, it’s the means by which employees connect with each other and work together to generate value. Research has proven that organizations can leverage these networks to attain ambitious goals more quickly. Indeed, the organizational network may be the most powerful asset an organization possesses. We have found that a six step process called The Catalyst Engagement can be used to quickly reveal an organization’s informal network and tap into it. The steps are:

1. Select a strategic initiative.
2. Identify the network of trusted associates using an on-line survey.
3. Map the network and look for patterns using statistical analysis.
4. Conduct a Catalyst Workshop with the organization and network leaders.
5. Mobilize resources to address target initiatives.
6. Complete the process and follow-up.

The benefits of this approach are these: the process identifies the people within the organization who are the key resources and natural change agents. It then links them to developing and executing initiatives that can have a major impact on the success of an organization, both in the short term and in the long run.

This approach has yielded tremendous dividends. The Raytheon Rocky Mountain Engineering department of the Space Systems in Aurora, Colorado used the technique and to help the group cope with a record work load, while making ground-breaking new innovations that won important new contracts. Concentrating on their key competencies, they learned valuable new information about how their networks influence their ability to get work done. They agreed on a few key initiatives to break down real barriers to communication and helped to establish the kind of collaborative culture that enables the true learning organization.

Bottom Line Tip #10: Capturing lost profits

Brought to you by HP

During these tough economic times, it is more important than ever for organizations to search for savings opportunities and ways to be more efficient. Procurement has acquired added spotlight, with firms seeking quality and transformational initiatives to derive a greater bang for every dollar spent. One quality initiative - reducing supplier payment errors - provides real dollar savings to organizations as well as improvement in the accounts payable control environment and accuracy of the payment transactions.

“US companies have an average payables error rate of between 0.1% and 0.4%.”

Source: Cashflowguardian.com

This rate is minuscule in terms of percentage, but can have a significant impact on an organization’s bottom-line, when factoring in an organization’s total spend. The error rate of 0.1% on $1 billion of spend is a recovery of $1 million.

Sources of lost profits (errors) include rebates (which typically represent the largest percentage), material returns, pricing changes, duplicate or wrong payments, and refunds. Factors that contribute to payment errors include multiple master records for one supplier, “rush” or non-standard payment flows, multiple invoice receipt processes, and multiple payment platforms within a region.

A two-pronged strategy should be adopted to stem the leakage of profit through payment errors:

• Technology. At the technology level, most of the enterprise solutions such as SAP have built-in criteria or logic to prevent the processing of duplicate payments. The complexity of the errors in the supplier payments requires an in-depth understanding of the supplier invoicing conventions, magnitude of errors based on the sample or previous audits, severity of the errors and control lapses.
  

• Trained human intelligence. However comprehensive the criteria and logic is in the enterprise solution, there will still be payment transactions that do not meet any of the criteria and yet potentially be an erroneous payment. This is where human intelligence plays a vital role, by performing a comprehensive transactional analysis on the supplier payment history to identify the overpayments with the help of trend analysis, reversal analysis and purchase order analysis.

Utilizing HP’s Payment Recovery Services with our proprietary technology and deep domain expertise can help you capture lost profits and improve the controls in your procure-to-pay process to prevent future errors.

Leadership Tip #10: Enable leadership to guide people through the change

Brought to you by IBM

In times of economic crisis, leaders play a central role in retaining and motivating the remaining talent within the organization. Individuals’ thirst for information during times of great uncertainty requires that leaders step up and take a proactive role in addressing workforce concerns while simultaneously tending to the demands of the external market. Yet, a recent study by the public relations firm Weber Shandwick indicates that 54 percent of American workers say they have received no information from their employers about the difficulties in the economy, while 71 percent say they want to hear more from leaders about this topic. (Weisman, Robert. “For Employers, a Quandary: Speak of Woes or Wait?” The Boston Globe. November 15, 2008.) Successful organizations recognize that, to retain the talent needed to weather the situation, leaders must be:

• Visible – In the absence of information, individuals will quickly fill the vacuum with speculation and rumor. Effective leaders take the time to keep their employees aware of the latest developments that affect them and their teams. This includes not only face-to-face meetings, but also sharing information with individuals whom leaders may have responsibility for, but do not see on a regular basis.
  
  
• Engaging – Not only do successful leaders share information, they find ways of involving employees as part of the change process. They provide opportunities for individuals to vent their concerns, offer suggestions for improvements and channel energies away from the inevitable distractions that occur during times of personal and organizational challenge.


• Values-driven – Leaders treat all individuals, even those who are losing their jobs, in a respectful manner that reflects the company’s espoused values. In today’s world of social networking technologies and Internet bulletin boards, a firm’s reputation can be significantly damaged in a moment. For example, stories of companies that notified employees of their dismissal by e-mail or text message continue to be retold even years after the events. If firms hope to hold onto and motivate their remaining valued employees, and be perceived as a desired employer during future growth periods, they need to be mindful of how their actions are perceived by a range of internal and external stakeholders.
  

Today’s economic slowdown can serve as a catalyst for organizations to take a more strategic workforce perspective. It can create the impetus for organizations to take a more intelligent, fact-based approach to understanding their current and future talent needs and requirements. It can provide companies with the opportunity to fill needed gaps through targeted hiring from distressed competitors and selected skill development. Most importantly, it can drive the mandate for overall workforce transformation – a rethinking of the work that must be done, the manner in which individuals accomplish the work and the role senior executives need to play in helping the organization through difficult times.